People have moved to cities in search of economic and cultural opportunities, but at the same time, urban growth has often been associated with contestation over space, including cultural and economic segregation, informal and precarious living conditions. The spectacular rise of what Saskia Sassen calls “global cities” has prompted broad interdisciplinary inquiry into the cultural and political dynamism and socioeconomic challenges of cities across the world. This course, co-taught by two East Asian Studies faculty members, a sociocultural anthropologist specialized in transnational migration and social movements and a historian of art and urban landscape, investigates intersections of art, architecture and place-making in Hong Kong, a paradigmatic high-density global city in East Asia that stands at the cross-roads of histories of empire, colonization, migration and globalization. This course engages interdisciplinary (ethnographic and visual studies) methods and theories to interrogate some of the promises and dilemmas various social groups face in global cities, and ask how they intersect with and confront each other in the shared or ‘public’ spaces of Hong Kong’s urban environment. To explore these issues, the students will study and critically assess a representative selection of materials that address the creation and contestation of urban space through the lenses of colonial and post-colonial governance, globalization, migration, cultural and ethnic identity and economic inequality, art, architecture and cultural heritage, and community and environment activism. The course seeks to establish Global Course Connection with Dr. Iam-Chong Ip of the Department of Cultural Studies at Lingnan University in Hong Kong. By partnering with Dr. Ip, who has expertise in urban politics, representation, and media activism, the course will benefit from his disciplinary expertise and knowledge about urban issues in Hong Kong, and from shared course assignments between his course at Lingnan and this seminar. Through GCC, the students will develop collaborative research projects on a site of choice. The course will culminate in mid-May 2019 with the group field trip to Hong Kong for 7 days, where we will meet with social and environmental activists (e.g., community advocates, immigrant rights advocates), local communities, scholars, artists, visit local art centers and museums, and apply Fine Arts and ethnographic methods to explore key urban landscapes.